The Z97 OC Formula is ASRocks new high-end motherboard when it comes to overclocking. There is also a beefed up audio solution with a very decent headphone amp, which makes this board even more interesting for gamers too. What you also get with this board is ASRocks "Conformal Coating", which basically makes this board waterproof. It's especially extreme overclockers who will love this feature. Overall we're really curious about this motherboard. ASRock has been investing quite some extra time in crafting this board and now we really want to know what it can do.

Typically when you go to buy a DSLR and you don’t have any lenses already, you would opt to buy one with what is called a kit lens. It is called a kit lens because with DSLRs, there are two main parts to the camera. The body and the lens. Together they form a “kit,” you need both in order for the camera to take photos. Usually, when I think of kit lenses I think of cheap, low quality optics and casing and worst of all, a variable aperture over the focal length range.

Chances are you already have several flash pen drives at home, either lying around on a desk or in a drawer. Smaller drives are ideal for flashing a motherboard BIOS and updating firmware, but the larger drives are more serious – used for backing up and moving large amounts of data between computers. It is true they are generally not the most exciting of devices however today we look at something very special from Corsair, a new flash drive they say is their fastest ever – The Voyager GTX.

The Corsair Flash Voyager GTX USB 3.0 Flash Drive series consists of pair of drives that are 128GB and 256GB in capacity and run $119.99 and $199.99, respectively. Corsair claims that the Flash Voyager GTX delivers SSD-like performance in a compact thumb drive. Corsair says they are able to do this thanks to the use of a Phison PS3109-S9 SSD controller being used on the Flash Voyager GTX series.

Back in 2013 Corsair stepped into the mobile storage market with the innovative Voyager Air and one year on, they are back again with the second instalment. Their venture into the mobile storage arena is of no surprise, Corsair has their finger in many pies and it appears that they never cease to flourish.

Voyager Air 2 is the successor to the original mobile storage drive and this time round comes with a refined aesthetic and feature-set. This new drive promises to deliver long battery life and a rather generous 1TB of storage, bringing with it handy tech such as USB 3.0 and wireless passthru.

Core Series refresh introduces a wide-body, mid-tower case for performance users. Fractal Design has revamped its value-focussed range of Core Series enclosures with the launch of three new models. In keeping with earlier efforts, the 'X5' refresh is all about "providing the core features and performance of Fractal Design’s case lineage at an aggressive price point."

The new range is composed of the Core 1500, a compact mini-tower for micro-ATX boards, the Core 2500, a more traditional mid-tower, and the Core 3500, a wide-bodied, mid-tower solution for high-performance parts. It's the latter that's under the spotlight today so let's dive in for a closer look.

For this review Kingston has sent over one of their newest solid state drives, the 240GB SSDNow mS200, model number SMS200S3/240G. This is not your typical 2.5" SSD, but an mSATA drive whose footprint is eight times smaller, making it ideal for use in laptops and tablets. While the physical size is much smaller with this form factor, you can still achieve transfer rates and capacities to rival the best 2.5" drives.

The promotional image above shows the compact card to be reviewed. At just about 51mm long, 30mm wide, and just a few millimeters thick it is clear why this is the form factor of choice for portable devices. Even desktop motherboards have started to support mSATA drives as it is fairly easy to integrate a controller and connector on to a board in order to take advantage of the power of these compact storage devices.

Patriot, a word with many meanings. I found myself stopped in my tracks just at the sound of it. A derivative of the word is Patriotic, and when I think of this, I often think of fireworks. Fireworks are often used in celebration and, whether young or old, we stand back and are awed by the resounding sounds and brilliant colors, something that can unite those who cannot speak the same language. We all enjoy such beautiful colors, bursting high in the air. Fireworks are often used as a celebratory way to show Patriotism, and regardless of gender, age or race, their beauty is admired by all.

Fireworks are one of many things that many people can enjoy, not just for a sense of being Patriotic, but just for the enjoyment. I am sure, like millions of other people across the globe, there is something that I enjoy on a daily basis not just during special occasions. Smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices have become something that have infiltrated their way into our daily lives. Going for a morning run? Don’t forget your iPod. Headed out the door on your way to work? Don’t forget your smartphone or tablet. They put the power of the internet, the largest library of books and information, at our fingertips. They give us access to our emails, phone calls and text messages, video chats, point of sale systems, and more. plus a plethora of apps, more than a person could probably use. Whether you have an iPhone, or other IOS device, or an Android, there are so many options, and yes, most of us use them daily. A large concern of users of these smart devices is battery life. The Patriot to the rescue! In this case, the Patriot Fuel+ mobile rechargeable battery.

Wireless Flash Drive from SanDisk is a USB 2.0 / WiFi flash drive mode to add storage space to your smartphone and/or tablet. The dongle is easy to use and it is available with 16, 32 and 64GB of storage space.

Silverstone has been offering fanless PSUs for quite some time; however, they hadn’t released a relevant product for some years now, which changed recently as their Nightjar fanless series now includes the NJ520 with Platinum efficiency, a fully modular cabling design, and a promise of total silence.

In the early stages of this year we saw the arrival of Synology’s DS214Play – a 2-bay system which offers users the ability to stream media connect across the network to everything, including mobile devices thanks to its onboard transcoding capabilities from Intel’s latest Evansport processor. Little did Synology know, this unit has turned out to be one of their most popular 2-bay systems to hit the shelves this year and as users embraced the transcoding power, the demand for a bigger and better system soon followed.

Aside from the obvious extension to four bays, the DS415Play features the same Intel Evansport 1.6GHz CPU, featuring Floating-Point Units, giving the system its popular ability to transcode media on the fly for streaming across to mobile devices as well as processing image thumbnails much faster than that of a typical SoC based system.

Connectivity wise we find an extra two USB2.0 ports on the rear of the system in place of the eSATA port that the 215 features. On paper this means that we should expect to see at least the same levels of performance as on of this years top-selling 2-bay systems, with an easy, too-free setup and a user interface that I consider to be one of the most user-friendly solutions on the market today.

The latest release from Synology’s enormous range of NAS is the DS415play. This 4-bay NAS looks pretty much identical to the DS414j(review) (http://www.kitguru.net/site-news/highlights2/leo-waldock/synology-ds415play-review/www.kitguru.net/networking/nas/leo-waldock/synology-ds414j-review) however it includes the features we saw in the DS214play(review) (http://www.kitguru.net/site-news/highlights2/leo-waldock/synology-ds415play-review/www.kitguru.net/site-news/highlights/zardon/synology-diskstation-ds214-play-review) . In essence this means the dual core ARM processor in the DS414 has been replaced with a dual core Intel Atom to ensure the DS415play has enough grunt to stream HD media across a network.

Would you rather be spoiled for choice, or have no choice at all? More often than not, if we have no option at all, then we would complain, because we have no option. If we have many options, we would also complain, because it is hard to make a decision. Here at APH Networks, we have recently covered three 4TB hard drives from all three major brands. This included the Deskstar NAS from HGST, NAS HDD ST4000VN000 from Seagate, and Red WD40EFRX 4TB from Western Digital. Ostensibly, they all serve the exact same purpose. Realistically, they all do it in a different way. To summarize what we have found in the trio of standalone reviews, here is a brief overview of our contestants in perspective, as well as the results. If you would like further detail, be sure to click on the links to dig into the full review for each product!